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As the United States, Canada, and Mexico begin talks aimed at renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is warningthe Trump administration not to touch investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions in the existing agreement.

What is ISDS and why is it so important to the Chamber, the nation’s largest corporate lobbying group?

ISDS gives multinational corporations the ability to challenge government policies not before the courts, but before international arbitration tribunals made up of three corporate lawyers. Multinational corporations can avail themselves of ISDS to challenge laws and regulations protecting consumer health and safety, the environment, and the stability of the financial system, among other things. If an ISDS tribunal rules in favor of a corporation, a government can be ordered to pay the corporation unlimited sums of taxpayer money, including for the loss of claimed future profits. What’s more, the arbitrators are not bound to legal precedent and their decisions cannot be appealed.

Quite obviously, ISDS is extremely problematic for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it undermines national sovereignty and the rule of law. Instead of national courts ruling on corporate challenges to national laws and regulations, unaccountable, supranational corporate lawyers-cum-arbitrators are given the power to decide whether laws enacted by our democratically elected government violate the special rights granted to corporations under NAFTA. How’s that for respecting the rule of law?

But beyond the foundational problem of handing over such immense power to supranational arbitrators, ISDS also presents the problem of being irretrievably riven by conflicts of interest. A corporate lawyer who represents a multinational corporation in one ISDS case may also serve as an arbitrator for a different ISDS case brought by a different corporation. Arbitrators are therefore incentivized to come up with novel legal interpretations favorable to corporate claimants which could in turn result in more corporations bringing more ISDS cases thereby creating more legal work for them in their capacity as lawyers. Even worse, arbitrators may have business or financial relationships with companies whose cases they are hearing.

The dangers presented by ISDS aren’t only theoretical; they are all too real. More than $390 million in taxpayer money has been paid to corporations in ISDS claims under NAFTA, with more than $36 billion pending in ongoing NAFTA cases.

In 2015, a NAFTA ISDS tribunal ruled against Canada in a case brought by a U.S. mining company. Canada’s crime? That its environmental impact assessment thwarted the American company’s plan to expand a quarry located in an environmentally sensitive area. The Canadian government was ordered to pay more than $100 million in taxpayers’ money to the American company.

Or consider an ISDS tribunal’s 2015 ruling against the Canadian government, ordering it to fork over more than $17 million in taxpayers’ money to Exxon. In this case, the government required any oil company operating in Newfoundland to contribute a small share of oil revenue to fund research and development in the economically struggling province in order to obtain a drilling license.

While the U.S. (and U.S. taxpayers) have thus far dodged the bullet of adverse ISDS rulings, we are far from immune to its dangers. For example, in 2016, TransCanada, the oil company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, sued the U.S. government before an ISDS tribunal, claiming $15 billion in compensation as a result of the Obama administration’s decision not to approve the construction of the pipeline. When Donald Trump reversed the decision, allowing the pipeline to move forward, TransCanada’s case remained in limbo until the White House clarified that a previous Trump executive order calling for pipelines to be constructed with American-made steel and pipe would not apply to Keystone XL. The State Department then promptly issued the permit, and TransCanada dropped its case. Close observers suspected that the quick permit approval and the Buy American steel/pipe waiver were likely the “settlement” price extracted from the Trump administration by TransCanada for dropping its NAFTA claim.

It’s only a matter of time before U.S. taxpayers are left on the hook, ordered to pay a corporation millions and perhaps billions of dollars by an ISDS tribunal. ISDS cases were once rather rare, with only 50 being filed in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s combined. But they are now exploding in number, with roughly 50 cases being filed in each of the last six years.

You might think that the United States Chamber of Commerce would show some concern for preserving the integrity of the American legal system and the rule of law, both of which have greatly contributed to the economic success of the United States. You would be mistaken. The Chamber’s dogged support of ISDS – an unaccountable, conflict-riven system than undermines state sovereignty in favor of corporate power – proves once again that it prioritizes corporate profits above all else.

Last week, a federal judge dismissed a case against a Seattle ordinance that would allow Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize. Seattle’s ordinance was passed in 2015 and would enable drivers to band together and collectively bargain with giant ride-hailing companies regarding pay, benefits, and working conditions.

The plaintiff in this case was none other than that relentless defender of corporate exploitation — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber argued without any evidence that the “ordinance will burden innovation, increase prices, and reduce quality and services for consumers.” This is actually the second complaint that the Chamber has filed against this law — an earlier case was thrown out last year — although another suit against the ordinance is still ongoing.

The rights of Uber and Lyft drivers have become an increasingly contentious subject as the ride-hailing platforms have expanded. Although the Seattle ordinance is designed to bypass this issue, much of the debate centers on how to classify these drivers in terms of their relationship with the ride hailing companies for which they work. Uber and Lyft have an incentive to categorize their drivers as “independent contractors”. This enables the companies to dodge monetary obligations — such as payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare as well as providing health insurance — that come with a traditional employer-employee relationship.

The current arrangement, under which ride hailing companies treat their drivers as independent contractors with no formal employment contract, has revealed itself to be seriously flawed. Despite Uber’s claims to the contrary, some of its workers fail to make minimum wage. The company is also notorious for its mistreatment of drivers. In fact, a report by the New York Times detailed the types of mind games the company plays in order to get more rides out of its drivers. While Lyft enjoys a far better public reputation, the company still confronts questions over the status of its workers. Allowing Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize could be a solution to many of these problems as it would provide drivers with the bargaining power necessary to successfully negotiate with giant corporations.

The Chamber’s insistence that everything is going swimmingly with the gig economy should come as no surprise. The gig economy has been a boon to giant corporations by reducing their labor costs, and the Chamber has a consistent record of putting profits before people. The Chamber also has a long history of fighting against workers’ protections, given that it was initially founded “to act as a counterweight to the growing labor movement.” The gig economy’s role in goosing corporate profits while weakening the labor movement explains why the Chamber was so determined to fight the Seattle ordinance in court.

It is often easy to become seduced by the siren song of technological “progress” and “innovation.” The Chamber’s embrace of the gig economy should serve as a warning to us all that simply because an industry is new and “innovative” doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be scrutinized to see if it treats its workers fairly and justly.

Just before Congress escaped town for the Fourth of July recess, the U.S. House Appropriations Committee released its draft fiscal year 2018 Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Appropriations bill. The FSGG appropriations bill provides annual funding for the U.S. Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and many other important agencies.

This year, however, the bill is packed chock full of ideological policy riders that have nothing to with funding the agencies the bill is supposed to provide for, and everything to do with pleasing the House majority’s corporate masters at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. By tucking these policy riders into must-pass legislation, the House leadership ensures that they have a better chance of becoming law than they would if they were forced to stand on their own (highly dubious) merits.

It may be the Fourth of July holiday week, but the release of the draft FSGG appropriations bill is likely to have been celebrated like Christmas in July in the marble hallways of the Chamber. The draft bill provides the Chamber with a veritable avalanche of presents, probably in response to the avalanche of money the Chamber has bestowed upon GOP candidates for Congress.

The biggest gift of all to the Chamber is the provision of the draft bill that would prevent the SEC from developing a rule that would require publicly traded companies to disclose their political spending to investors, including donations to politically active trade associations like the Chamber. The secrecy-obsessed Chamber has long lobbiedagainst such a rule. It has even reached out to member companies to urge them against voluntarily disclosing such information despite the fact that more than 1.2 million investors (retail and institutional) and members of the public have called for it.

If the policy rider prohibiting the development of a political spending disclosure rule qualifies as the proverbial new car in the garage on Christmas morning, then the rider eliminating the financial independence of the CFPB qualifies as the proverbial first class tickets to Paris for the Chamber and its friends on Wall Street. Fighting the existence of a strong, independent CFPB has been a lodestar for the Chamber. Why does the Chamber hate the CFPB so much? Probably because the CFBP is doing its job, working to protect consumers from unscrupulous and sometimes illegal behavior by the big financial institutions whose interests the Chamber represents. Indeed, the CFPB has obtained $11.8 billion in relief for over 29 million consumers. That’s $11.8 billion that wasn’t available for executive bonuses and stock buy-backs.

Unfortunately, bringing the CFPB under the heal of the very politicians who are most dependent upon corporate cash for their reelections isn’t the only policy rider in the draft FSGG appropriations bill that’s a giveaway to the Chamber’s Wall Street patrons. The draft bill contains a separate rider that would repeal the Volcker Rule. The Volcker Rule prevents banks from engaging in speculative trading with depositors’ money, thereby reducing the chances of another financial crisis. Of course, the Chamber and the Big Banks don’t like the Volcker Rule because it limits Wall Street’s ability to make short term profits that in turn produce big bonuses for executives.

As if all this weren’t enough, the draft FSGG appropriations bill contains another yuge gift for the Chamber and its financial services industry backers. The draft bill contains a rider which would halt a CFPB rule restricting the use of forced arbitration clauses buried in the fine print of consumer financial contracts. The Chamber has long campaigned against limits on this “rip-off” clause. Blocking this rule would essentially allow corporations to rip off consumers with impunity, as the Wells Fargo fake account scandal litigation has shown.

While it is undoubtedly depressing that our elected officials, who are supposed to represent the people, are instead finding new and ever more creative opportunities to shower gifts on their corporate benefactors, we still have time to make our voices heard. The House FSGG appropriations bill hasn’t yet passed through the full appropriations committee. So call your congressperson and tell him or her that you object to all of these harmful policy riders whose only purpose is to please the Chamber and the giant corporations intent upon buying our democracy.

Because if we don’t stand up and make our voices heard, then they very well may wind up singing some rather special Christmas carols at the Chamber this summer.

How would you react if we told you that popular brands such as Disney, Pepsi, and Gap were funding the Trump agenda? That your hard-earned money was going to support Steve Bannon’s dreamed of “deconstruction of the administrative state” which would wipe away a whole host of public protections?

Surprised? Upset? Angry?

Sorry, but it’s true. You see, it turns out that Disney, Pepsi, and Gap all fund Washington’s most powerful lobbying group, a group that is the driving force behind much of the Trump/GOP agenda.

Which group is that? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber, backed by nearly $275 million in corporate money, is Washington’s proverbial 800 pound gorilla. On issues as diverse as climate, clean air, clean water, fossil fuel production and pipelines, worker safety, financial regulation, net neutrality, healthcare, overtime pay, and deregulation in general, Trump and the GOP are ripping entire pages from the Chamber’s playbook.

Here at Public Citizen’s Chamber Watch project, we wanted to know which companies were funding the Chamber/Trump agenda, and we were particularly interested to know if companies that have made public commitments on climate, sustainability, clean water, and public health were funding the Chamber despite its long history of anti-climate, anti-environmental, pro-tobacco advocacy.

Based on our review of publicly-available information as well as conversations with company officials, we learned that many companies that have – at least on paper – good policies on climate, sustainability, and/or public health are still funding the Chamber.

And Disney, Pepsi, and Gap are among these companies.

Today, a diverse coalition of more than 50 groups in more than a dozen countries asks Disney, Gap, and Pepsi to stop funding a trade association that works against the environmental and public health policies these corporations claim to support. After all, how can we take these companies’ commitments on climate and public health seriously when they financially support an organization that is one of the lead plaintiffs against the Clean Power Plan, constantly lobbies for the fossil fuel industry, and lobbies in dozens of countries against anti-smoking laws and regulations?

Already, companies such as Apple and Pacific Gas & Electric have left the Chamber due to the Chamber’s anti-climate advocacy, and CVS left as a result of the Chamber’s pro-tobacco work. It is time for Disney, Pepsi, and Gap to do the same. To continue to fund the Chamber would be to render meaningless the positive steps these companies have taken on climate and/or tobacco.

What’s more, continued support of the Chamber poses a significant reputational risk to these companies, one that should concern their shareholders. Not only does membership in the Chamber render them complicit in the Chamber’s anti-climate and pro-tobacco advocacy, it also associates them with an explicitly partisan group.

In 2016, the Chamber formed an alliance with leading Republican luminaries to “Save the Senate” for the GOP. The Chamber ultimately wound up spending almost $30 million in dark money on congressional races, more than any other group that doesn’t disclose its donors. All of this money benefited Republican candidates.

Like all companies, Disney, Pepsi, and Gap have ideologically diverse customer bases, and presumably many of their customers would be angry to learn that companies they patronize are supporting such a partisan group. In an era when more and more consumers are linking their purchasing decisions to a company’s political activities, it is especially risky for brands like Disney, Pepsi, and Gap to associate themselves with a hyper-partisan group such as the Chamber that is one of the architects of the Trump agenda.

The Chamber’s agenda is bad for both public health and the health of the planet and its secret money partisan political spending is bad for the health of a transparent democracy. The time has come for Disney, Pepsi, and Gap to drop the Chamber.

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al Sisi took power in a military coup in 2013, overthrowing the country’s democratically elected president. Since that time, Sisi has embarked upon a violent crackdown on democratic freedoms. It is estimated that he has arrested and jailed more than 40,000 political prisoners. Journalists are among the detained and torture is allegedly common in Sisi’s prisons. Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are severely abridged and civil society groups are routinely persecuted. As if all this weren’t bad enough, Sisi’s security forces have been implicated in a wave of extra-judicial killings.

Ignoring this abysmal human rights record, President Trump invited Sisi to Washington and lavishly praised him during their White House meeting on April 3rd. Given Trump’s affinity for strongmen, we perhaps shouldn’t be surprised that he would fête a leader with such a horrifying record of human rights abuses.

But Trump wasn’t the only person who fêted Sisi while he was in Washington. So did U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue. He welcomed Sisi to the Chamber’s headquarters across the street from the White House and one of his lieutenants declared that “[e]arly indications show we have entered a promising new period defined by the opportunity to forge a stronger partnership between the United States and Egypt based on common, vital interests.”

What are those “common, vital interests?” The Chamber highlights the two nations’ $5 billion in bilateral trade. It also mentions regulatory cooperation, entrepreneurism, and intellectual property rights as priority areas on which to focus.

Not one word on human rights.

Unfortunately, the Chamber’s embrace of Sisi and its silence about his appalling human rights record is business as usual for the group. Time and again, the Chamber has welcomed foreign leaders accused of gross human rights violations or opposed U.S. government actions to protect human rights overseas.

For example, in August of 2016, the Chamber hosted the foreign ministers of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan despite the fact that all five of these nations engage in serious human rights abuses according to Human Rights Watch. What’s more, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are accused of using the largest state-sponsored forced labor systems of cotton production in the world. One has to wonder why an American business group would want to associate itself with business practices that are antithetical to the responsible business practices that many of its member firms publicly promote.

In January of 2016, the Chamber urged the elimination of responsible investment reporting requirements in Myanmar. This despite the fact that Myanmar’s repressive military remains in tight control of many economic sectors, creating a risk that foreign investment in the country could lead to complicity in human rights abuses. What’s more, the one company that also offered written comments on the reporting requirements, Gap (which is also a Chamber member), supported these reporting requirements as being a useful for tool for improving labor practices and human rights in Myanmar.

The Chamber has also been a consistent opponent of transparency with respect to conflict minerals. Proceeds from the mining of these minerals have funded the ongoing conflict between various armed factions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which is responsible for an estimated 5.4 million deaths as well as an epidemic of sexual violence. In an effort to curtail international demand for minerals mined in the DRC and thereby extinguish the flow of money fueling the fighting, the U.S. government required that companies producing and/or selling products containing such minerals determine whether their products contained minerals from the DRC and publicly disclose whether their products were free of such minerals. The Chamber sued to block the implementation of this rule. In suing to block the conflict mineral rule, the Chamber ignored the position of companies such as Microsoft, General Electric, AT&T, HP, Dell, Intel, IBM, and Verizon (at least some of whom are Chamber members) who all publicly support the rule.

Alien tort statute litigation is another area where the Chamber has shown a complete lack of concern for human rights. The alien tort statute gives non-citizens the right to sue in U.S. courts in certain circumstances. In these alien tort cases, the Chamber has repeatedly supported multinational corporations, arguing that they shouldn’t be sued in U.S. courts for alleged complicity in human rights abuses overseas. For example, the Chamber supported Royal Dutch Shell, accused of complicity in a Nigerian government campaign against demonstrators protesting environmental degradations caused by Shell’s oil drilling. The campaign is alleged to have involved rape, looting, and pillaging. The Chamber also supported Rio Tinto, accused of complicity in atrocities including rape, pillaging, aerial bombardment of civilians, and the burning of villages during a civil war in Papua New Guinea.

The Chamber’s blatant and repeated disregard for human rights has not only placed it at odds with individual companies on specific policy questions, but it has also shown the Chamber to be increasingly out of step with the growing trend of greater business attention to human rights issues. The United Nations has developed guiding principles for business and human rights under the auspices of its global compact. An increasing number of companies around the world are signing on to these principles.

Unfortunately, the Chamber remains wedded to its “profits before people” way of thinking. While the Chamber’s total indifference to human rights is of course morally bankrupt, it is ultimately short-sighted and bad for business too. Those thousands of jailed Egyptians, thousands of enslaved Turkmen and Uzbeks, and millions of dead Congolese, they also represent so many economic actors – consumers but also innovators and entrepreneurs the Chamber claims to champion – who have been quite literally erased from the economy by the strongmen or armed militias who rule over them. What’s more, autocratic, violent regimes are incompatible with the climate of free-wheeling critical thinking that favors innovation and economic growth.

The Chamber’s support for tyrants such as Sisi begs the question: does the Chamber really even care about economic growth, innovation, and entrepreneurism? Or is it just dedicated to defending the modern feudal order, preserving the rights of the strong while resisting any attempts to empower the weak?

In a previous piece, we wrote about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s very busy litigation practice, the issues the Chamber litigates most frequently, the government agencies it most often opposes, and the giant multinational corporations its litigation most often supports.

In a newly-released report, we examine a few dozen of the most egregious cases the Chamber has litigated. From financial crisis-related litigation to cases stemming from BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill to Keystone XL to fracking to the Clean Power Plan to a case involving the Buckyball magnetic toy that injured over 1,700 children, the Chamber has been actively involved in some of the most notorious civil cases of recent years. Some of the lowlights of the Chamber’s litigation include:

Litigation related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.The Chamber filed an amicus brief on behalf of BP on4 separate occasions, arguing for legal technicalities that would eliminate or reduce civil fines and penalties that government agencies sought to impose upon BP as well as obstruct class action litigation brought by small businesses against BP.

Litigation related to the Buckyball magnetic toy responsible for injuring thousands of children. The Chamber filed an amicus brief in support of the CEO of the company that sold Buckyballs, a toy that injured over 1,700 young children. It argued that he should not be personally liable for recall costs in spite of the fact that he had had ample warning of the danger posed by the toy and had indeed fought recall efforts, resulting in a delay that led to further sales—and further injuries.

Litigation related to for-profit Corinthian Colleges’ fraudulently misleading students. The Chamber filed an amicus brief in support of Corinthian Colleges’ effort to prevent former students from suing it in court for fraud despite the fact that Corinthian was already the subject of multiple investigations targeting similar conduct and had already settled a previous fraud case involving similar allegations.

Litigation related to the Keystone XL pipeline. The Chamber sided with the Canadian energy giant behind the pipeline over American ranchers and farmers who didn’t want the pipeline being routed through their land.

The Clean Power Plan. The Chamber sued the EPA to block President Obama’s signature initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at power plants.

Minimum Wage Litigation. The Chamber fought to strike down Seattle’s law raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, claiming that it would be bad for workers.

GMO Labeling Litigation. The Chamber filed an amicus brief opposing Vermont’s GMO labeling law, arguing that it did not advance a legitimate state interest and impinged upon corporations’ free speech rights.

Alien Tort Statute Litigation. The Chamber filed amicus briefs in cases involving Nigerian and Papua New Guinean plaintiffs who alleged that foreign multinationals had been complicit in gross human rights abuses including rape, pillage, and aerial bombardment of civilians. In both cases, public protests against the industrial sites in question were brutally repressed by the government, allegedly at the behest of and assisted by the corporate defendants.

Walmart Gun Sales Litigation. The Chamber filed an amicus brief supporting Walmart’s effort to prevent shareholders from voting on a proxy resolution calling for the company’s board to examine its sale of high capacity firearms.

Labor Rights for Gig Economy Workers. The Chamber sued the city of Seattle to block its law allowing Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize.

Litigation against Goldman Sachs for fraudulently misleading investors. The Chamber filed an amicus brief supporting Goldman Sachs in its efforts to make it more difficult for defrauded investors including pension funds to sue as a result of huge losses they suffered during the financial crisis.

Taken as a whole, the Chamber’s legal filings show it to be attempting to advance an exceptionally dangerous agenda via the courts. This agenda includes:

Invalidating important regulations protecting workers, consumers, and the environment, including rules promoting clean air, clean water, greater information, and prudent banking practices. The Chamber’s opposition to regulation is almost blanket, even extending to cases where the rule at issue would correct obvious market failures.

Making it harder to hold corporations accountable. The Chamber seeks to make it more difficult for consumers and small businesses harmed by corporate malfeasance to go to court. It also argues for more limited corporate prosecutions and for smaller penalties. Finally, it argues against U.S. jurisdiction in cases where corporations are accused of human rights abuses overseas. The Chamber’s ultimate goal in these cases is the same: corporate accountability should be minimized and/or eliminated.

Putting profits before people. The Chamber takes a very robber baron view of business. Whether defending Wall Street speculation or Big Pharma price gouging or appalling fast food labor practices or new economy exploitation of gig economy workers, the Chamber is unconcerned with how dubious business practices harm workers and consumers.

Favoring Big Business over small businesses. While the Chamber claims to be the voice of small businesses in Washington, when it comes to its litigation practice, it can be relied upon to favor the giant multinational corporations that fund it. Whether it’s by arguing for reduced access to the courts, opposing stricter supervision of Wall Street banks designed to reduce the risk of future financial crises, fighting for Big Oil against emissions controls, or supporting Big Pharma’s schemes to keep drug prices sky high, the Chamber always comes down on the side of its deep-pocketed Big Business patrons, ignoring the impact on small businesses.

The Chamber’s use of the courts to advance its Big Business-friendly, anti-consumer, anti-worker, anti-environmental agenda is important in considering the future of the Supreme Court. Some of these cases reached the Supreme Court; others may yet reach the Supreme Court. Progressives should demand that any future justice recognize the tremendous importance of regulations that protect workers, consumers, and the environment and refuse to put profits before people as the Chamber so often argues our courts should do.

Earlier this month, The Guardian published an investigation into the network of politicians, donors, and groups that raised tens of millions of dollars to defend Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and several Wisconsin state senators who faced recall elections in 2011 and 2012. They also looked at conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, Jr., who was up for re-election in 2011.

It is estimated that an astounding $137 million was spent on the recall races, with millions more spent on the Supreme Court race. The Guardian exposé, based on over 1500 pages of leaked emails and other documents, gives us a bird’s eye view into the dirty business of raising boatloads of cash from corporate special interests and the very rich.

This trove of leaked documents is particularly important because Wisconsin law does not require the disclosure of monies spent on “issue advocacy” ads that praise or criticize a candidate without explicitly calling on voters to vote for or against the candidate. Many groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ran “issue advocacy” ads in these races, and therefore their names do not appear in publicly available databases of elections spending in Wisconsin. The leaked documents offer the public a chance to peak behind the legal curtain that shields deep-pocketed special interest groups from having to disclose their electioneering activities.

ChamberWatch wanted to learn more about the role played by the Chamber in financing the deluge of ads that dominated the airwaves in the months leading up to these elections. So we reviewed the 1500 pages of leaked documents that The Guardian made available online.

We found that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as well as the Wisconsin state chamber, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, played major roles as outside spenders in these races, particularly in the Supreme Court race.

Tellingly, when Walker’s chief fundraising consultant laid out an initial blueprint for funding his recall election, she listed the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform as a major potential donor along with the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, major corporations, and CEOs of major corporations, among others.

The primary evidence that the Chamber spent money on behalf of Walker comes from an email sent by Chamber head of communications Tom Collamore to one of Walker’s campaign consultants. The email includes a Wall Street Journal article about a $2 million ad buy by the Wisconsin state chamber promoting Walker. (The total spent by the state chamber on the recall elections was at least $4.7 million). The consultant then forwards the email, writing “Tom is a good friend…we have had many conversations about Scott…they know the significance of this race and that is why they are so supportive…and will continue to be so.”

Unfortunately, none of the leaked documents indicate exactly how much money the Chamber spent on the governor’s race. However, we know that a PAC associated with the Republican Governors Association was one of the largest outside spenders in the governor’s race. We also know that the Chamber gave $1.25 million in 2012 to the RGA, making it the sixth largest donor to the group. Of course, we don’t know how much if any of this money was spent in Wisconsin.

The evidence of Chamber elections spending is even more clear cut with respect to the Supreme Court election. One of Walker’s top advisors writes that he assumes the Chamber is in for a minimum of $1.1 million for the Supreme Court race. A subsequent email from the same advisor mentions a Chamber ad buy of $1.5 million for the Supreme Court race. Judging by estimates of total spending it is a safe bet that the Chamber was one of the largest if not the largest spender on the Supreme Court race.

The leaked documents also reveal that at the same time the U.S. Chamber and Wisconsin state chamber were showering Walker and Prosser with money, the state chamber was also providing corporations including Altria, Walmart, Kimberly-Clark, Xcel Energy and AT&T access to Walker as well as lobbying him on unemployment insurance and workers compensation.

And therein lies the reason why the Chamber and the large corporations it represents were “so supportive” of Walker and Prosser and why they spent so much money bolstering their reelection campaigns. Walker and his conservative allies in the state legislature were receptive to lobbying by Big Business pushing an anti-worker agenda. They had just passed a major bill eviscerating worker rights and protections. And Prosser could be counted on to protect this legislation from any legal challenges. Without Walker, without a conservative majority in the state legislature, or without Prosser, not only would it have been possible to undo the damage done by this legislation, but Big Business would no longer have the opportunity to get additional items on its anti-worker wish list enacted into law and upheld by the courts.

The leaked Wisconsin documents paint a picture of a political system almost entirely reliant on—and beholden to—big money corporate donors. And the U.S. Chamber and its affiliates stand at the nexus of this unholy alliance between Big Business and the political class. Perhaps it’s time to admit the obvious: our democracy is now a corporatocracy.

On June 22, 2016, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donohue gave a speech entitled “Financing America’s Economic Growth: How Robust Capital Markets Can Help Revitalize Our Economy” at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City. He began this speech by recalling that he previously spoke at Nasdaq in 2007, in the months before the Financial Crisis. He claimed that his advice then went unheeded. One is left to wonder exactly to what advice he is referring, as the Chamber has been a longstanding advocate of the type of deregulation that helped lead to the 2008 financial crisis. However, despite his dubious claims of prescience, Donohue offered us a second chance to dissect his well-worn platitudes that mask the Chamber’s aggressive deregulatory agenda.

Claim #1: “We want smart regulation.”

While Donohue may claim to seek “smart” regulations, the reality is that the Chamber almost never supports any new regulations. The Chamber does, however, spend its vast resources fighting against regulations intended to safeguard the American public. Most recently, the Chamber has opposed the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule requiring money managers to act in their clients’ best interests as well as the Overtime Rule requiring that more salaried workers be paid for any overtime hours they work. Not to mention the Chamber’s epic fight against implementing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, including the Volcker rule banning commercial banks from engaging in proprietary trading activity with depositors’ money and rules proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), like limiting the use of forced arbitration clauses. Claiming that you’re for “smart” regulation when you almost never propose any is nothing more than a smoke screen to hide the Chamber’s reactionary, anti-regulatory agenda.

Claim #2: “If we take away the right to fail, we take away the right to succeed.”

Donohue’s defense of Wall Street ignores the fact that the new regulations born of the financial crisis do not take away the right for banks to fail; they merely attempt to eliminate the right to be toobigto fail and therefore require taxpayer dollars for bailouts. While Donohue claims that these newly enacted regulations harm Main Street, the reality is that they shield Main Street from the enormous collateral damage that occurs when Wall Street’s casino games blow up as they did during the financial crisis. Credit for Main Street dries up when banks’ speculative activities run amok, something Donohue tries to gloss over in his speech.

Claim #3: “Too often rules are decided in the backrooms of Washington”

Talk about chutzpah. The Chamber is the nation’s largest lobbyist and is a habitué of Washington backroom deals. What’s more, Donohue has the audacity to demand greater transparency at various regulatory agencies despite the fact that the Chamber itself is quite opaque, refusing to disclose where its own money comes from. The Chamber received nearly $170 million in 2012 from just 1,500 donors. Not a single donor was disclosed. The Chamber’s very own head lobbyist, Bruce Josten, has stated “We never disclose funding or what we’re going to do.” If Donohue is serious about bringing transparency to Washington, then he should start with his own organization.

Claim #4: “I know a thing or two about the Post Office… Having it launch a banking operation is as dumb an idea as I have heard in Washington, a town full of dumb ideas.”

Postal banks are a fixture in many industrialized nations. The U.S. also historically had postal banking. Allowing the Post Office to expand its product line would provide much needed financial services to those who would normally go unbanked. This would be a great thing for consumers, particularly poor consumers who would benefit immensely from being able to avoid payday lenders and their astronomical interest rates. Of course, a Post Office bank would be a terrible thing for payday lenders, so naturally, the Chamber is against it.

Claim #5: “We’re not looking to pick winners and losers.”

Au contraire! Donohue and the Chamber’s agenda is very much looking to pick winners, and the winners in this speech, delivered in the heart of Wall Street are, not surprisingly, Wall Street banks as well as the rest of the financial services industry– the payday lenders, insurance companies, credit card issuers, and student loan issuers. Donohue’s agenda also creates losers, starting with small businesses and consumers who are harmed when the financial services sector is deregulated as Donohue wishes it to be.

Donohue famously stated that he wanted to turn the Chamber into “the biggest gorilla in this town.” When it comes to the Chamber’s anti-regulatory agenda, Donohue is not so candid. While he may claim to support transparency and regulations and to act in the best interests of Main Street, that could not be further from the truth. Donohue and the Chamber’s M.O. should by now be clear: say one thing, do another.

In our first update on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s elections spending in late March, we issued a Chamber of Commerce weather forecast for Capitol Hill: make it rain. Well three weeks later, its flood of campaign spending has continued unabated.

In a mere three weeks, the Chamber dropped an additional $1.7 million on elections spending, bringing its total so far for the 2016 election cycle to more than $5.4 million. This total has pushed it up one place on the list of largest outside spenders to the number eleven spot. It remains the largest outside spender on congressional races and remains the largest outside spender that does not disclose any information about its donors. That’s right, voters have no way of knowing who is behind the deluge of Chamber-funded ads supporting or opposing House and Senate candidates in the nine states in which it has so far been active.

So where has the Chamber been making it rain since we last checked in? The Chamber has flooded the Indiana airwaves with $1 million on behalf of Republican Senate candidate Todd Young. And the Chamber has continued to drown the Ohio airwaves with another $700,000 in spending against Democratic Senate candidate Ted Strickland, bringing the total amount the Chamber has spent against Strickland to just shy of $1.3 million.

The Chamber’s latest shower of money follows its already established pattern of hyper-partisanship. It has still not spent a single cent opposing a Republican candidate or supporting a Democratic candidate. Now some might be tempted to interject that it’s only logical that the Chamber would support Republican candidates since the Republican Party supposedly represents the best interests of business and the Democratic Party doesn’t. This of course would be wrong.

A recent summary of opinion polling reveals that business leaders actually support many Democratic policy proposals, including raising the minimum wage, paid sick leave, and predictive scheduling for employees. And contrary to what the Chamber would have you believe, replacing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was not as high on business leaders’ list of priorities as was simply keeping healthcare costs low for families. So if business leaders themselves hold nuanced views about policy and indeed support many progressive policy proposals, why then does the Chamber only spend money to help Republican candidates get elected?

The Chamber’s one-sided, overly partisan election spending suggest that instead of representing all American businesses as it claims, the Chamber actually represents the narrow interests of a few industries. Its unwavering opposition to the ACA does not reflect a business consensus to this effect but rather reflects the priorities of the health insurance industry, which reportedly has given the Chamber more than $86 million to oppose the ACA. Similarly, its opposition to an increase in the minimum wage may reflect the opposition of the fast food and retail industries, both of which employ millions of low wage workers. And of course the Chamber’s opposition to legislative and regulatory efforts to fight climate change may be explained by the influence of the fossil fuel industry.

Lost in the Chamber’s flood of partisan political spending are the more nuanced views of the majority of business executives. Likewise, the Chamber’s hyper-partisan outlook also ignores the priorities of small business, green energy, sustainable business, and a whole host of other sectors.

One often hears that April showers bring May flowers, but unfortunately in this case, the Chamber’s torrent of election spending, should it succeed in getting its preferred candidates elected, will only bring about policies that not only hurt everyday Americans, but also run counter the policy priorities of a majority of business leaders. Unfortunately, the weather forecast for Capitol Hill is unlikely to change before the election; the Chamber will continue to make it rain, in the hope that it will be able to drown out the voices of average Americans, and even many of the business leaders it claims to represent.

Last time, I wrote about how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s arguments in favor of forced arbitration fell apart during a U.S. Senate Banking Committee hearing on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau(CFPB). And this, despite the fact that the hearing was actually more akin to a show trial, stacked with witnesses opposed to the CFPB.

As I pointed out, there’s something very inconsistent and illogical about defending forced arbitration while simultaneously (and erroneously) claiming that arbitration provides better outcomes for consumers. But not only is the Chamber’s argument internally inconsistent, it’s also completely inconsistent with the “free market” economic theory that the Chamber claims to champion.

In order to better understand what I’m getting at here, let’s take a journey back to Economics 101. Free Market economic theory is based upon the assumption of individual rational actors, that is, consumers, workers, managers, and investors who each act in their own individual best interests. Indeed, Adam Smith, the founder of free market economic theory, relied on the concept of individual rational actors as the basis for his famous invisible hand metaphor, beloved by capitalists the world over.

If one accepts free market economic theory, as the Chamber claims to do, then consumers are rational actors, and as rational actors, they would therefore choose arbitration over the court system if arbitration were actually better for them. But the Chamber is defending forced arbitration, suggesting that it actually believes that either consumers aren’t rational or that arbitration isn’t actually a better option for them.

The Chamber’s defense of forced arbitration puts it in a tough spot. While the Chamber likes to think of itself as an avatar of American free market capitalism, its defense of forced arbitration runs counter to the foundations of the very free market economic theory it claims to cherish. In short, it finds itself confronted with the following dilemma: either commit heresy against the gospel of capitalism or admit that forced arbitration is in the best interests of Corporate America and the Big Banks and not of consumers whose power of choice it eliminates.

It is all too fitting that the Chamber appears to have strayed from its faith in free market economic theory at a show trial masquerading as a hearing. Show trials were of course one of the hallmarks of Soviet communist rule, so what better occasion to break from capitalist orthodoxy? As for which the Chamber ultimately renounces—capitalism or the Big Banks that have been pushing forced arbitration on their customers—the smart money says never bet against the banks.